What have I learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Throughout constructing my music magazine I have used many software programmes and learned how to use tools correctly, which would help me create a professional product in the end.

Before this process I have never had to capture professional photographs, therefore this was a real challenge for me as I did not have the knowledge or skills to do this. I learned that in order to achieve a high quality image the lighting had to be accurately placed.

Original image:

This image shows a great use of lighting, as it is placed directly above her face, creating a glow over one side of her face. This emphasises the models, make-up and makes her eyes stand out, which will attract the reader’s attention. 

Her hair however would need editing as it is not been placed evenly and gaps appear in sections of it. I was able to fill in the white background of her hair using the ‘clone’ tool. This tool allowed me to copy other sections of her hair and paste them into the gaps that needed filling, making her hair look fuller and making the image seem .

To cut the image out I used the ‘crop’ image to cut out all the unwanted background, then I used the ‘magnetic lasso’ tool to cut around the selected image precisely, that I wanted to use. This allowed me to highlight the parts I thought looked professional and I was able to remove the odd strand of hair that looked out of place, by using the ‘magic eraser’ tool, as this selects the bits that were not part of the main image and deleted them.

I also changed the brightness and contrast of the model's hair, as I still wanted the hair to look a natural colour, but I wanted to emphasis it to make it look glossier so it would attract my target audience.

I edited her eye colour and make-up (eyeliner and lip-gloss) by selection the ‘paint brush’ tool and decreasing the ‘opacity’ level down to 15%, this allowed me to selected a similar colour to the original but highlight it more to make it stand out and make it more noticeable, as the eyes need to catch the buyer’s attention and you could not see the make-up colour very well on her lower lip, therefore I highlighted the edges to make the photo seem more professional.

When I put the image on my front cover I was able just to simply expand the image using the ‘transform controls’ and the select tool, this kept the image to a high quality but enlarged it to fit my full page, as this would appear as the main feature of my front cover, as after the editing the image seemed professional, attractive and persuasive.